Eros and Agape in Levinas' Wisdom of Love

Eros and Agape in

Levinas’ Wisdom of Love:

Corey W. Beals

Fordham University

Emmanuel Levinas advocates a model of philosophy which is the ‘wisdom of love in the service of love’ [OB, 162] and this of course is to be juxtaposed with the traditional philosophic ‘love of wisdom.’ So what does this ‘wisdom of love’ amount to, and how is it different than ‘love of wisdom’ and in what way are the two compatible or incompatible? To address these questions I shall look at what Levinas has to say about eros and agape.

To address these questions, I shall analyze what Levinas says about love and wisdom in terms of agape and eros, and the relationship of the two types of love. As John Davenport has mentioned when talking about agape and Levinas, it “will doubtless be protested that Levinas’s ethics is meant as a phenomenoligcal metaphysics and is nothing like the sort of theology with which the term ‘agape’ is associated.” I acknowledge with Davenport that “Levinas does not focus on constructing an agape theory of ethics. However, it would be difficult to maintain that he constantly invokes the Hebrew categories of the neighbor and the stranger--with their unmistakable allusion to the love commandments in the Torah--only for what they can contribute figuratively to a characterization of transcendence.”^[1] It is with that qualification, therefore, that I will speak of what Levinas has to say about agape.

Since our time is short and the topic and literature immense, I will try to accomplish little more than to observe some of what Levinas has said about this topic along with two competing interpretations of what he has said. Without attempting to settle the interpretive debate once-and-for-all, I shall use that discussion as a place from which to launch a more general question regarding the relationship of eros and agape. So in addition to seeing what Levinas has to say, my goal is that of asking a further question, and I will only give a nod toward possible options for beginning to answer it.

Now turning to the relationship of eros and agape, I want to investigate two distinctions. The first distinction is between the exclusivist and inclusivist views of agape and eros. The second, though related, distinction is between the reductionist and non-reductionist views of agape and eros.

I will begin by asking whether Levinas is an exclusivist with regard to agape and eros. He often treats the concepts of agape and eros in terms of “desire” and one thing about Levinas that is quite clear is that “desire” plays a central role in his ethics. In fact, as he states in the opening pages of the opening section of the opening chapter in his first major work, Totalite et Infinite, it is in desire for the other where the ethical relationship is found. It is in desire which one encounters the transcendent.

But how does he conceive of this desire in which we find our responsibility for the other and in which we encounter the transcendent? First, it must be noted that his use of the term desire does not refer to need or eros. He tells us that “desire does not coincide with an unsatisfied need; it is situated beyond satisfaction.”^[2] The desire to which he refers he calls “metaphysical desire” and it is a desire toward that which is absolutely other. This metaphysical desire for the other is different than desire as it is commonly analyzed. That which is metaphysically desired is “not ‘other’ like the bread I eat, the land in which I dwell, [or] the landscape I contemplate .”^[3] I may be here in this room with desire to eat the sautéed chicken and peppers that I smell in the other room, and that desire, as need, may be fulfilled when I go and satiate my appetite by partaking of the catered food that awaits us. But this is not the type of desire (‘desire’ as a need to be filled or a need to be satisfied) that Levinas has in mind. Rather, “[i]t is a desire that can not be satisfied” and it “desires beyond everything that can simply complete it.” In fact, that which the metaphysical desire desires, “does not fulfill it, but deepens it.”^[4]

So Levinas is not speaking of eros when he speaks of metaphysical desire. On the contrary, he is referring to agape instead. In Entre Nous, he addresses this at length calling this ethical responsibility for the Other by the term, “love of one’s neighbor,”^[5] which of course is a way of describing agape. [note: perhaps expand more on Levinas’ desire as agape rather than desire as eros--see Entre Nous, 103, 131, 149, 169, 194, 216, 227, 228)].

1. The Exclusivist Question

But this now leads us to the question of how Levinas envisions the relationship between agape and eros. More precisely, does Levinas view agape in exclusivist terms, such that agape and eros are mutually exclusive? If the answer is yes, then any presence of eros would spoil agape, and agape would be defined precisely by the absence of eros. I will first look at the interpretation offered by John Caputo who concludes that Levinas’ view of desire is not only agapeistic, but that it is so on an exclusivist model. Then I shall turn to Adriaan Peperzak who suggests that Levinas does not view agape and eros and mutually exclusive.

a. An Exclusivist Interpretation: John Caputo

I first want to turn to John Caputo as an example of one who interprets Levinas as an exclusivist. When Levinas tells us about the absolute altruistic obligation for the Other, we do not find him saying that this is merely an impossible ideal. Our obligation to be ‘wholly for the other’ is presented as an empirical fact. Caputo, while retaining respect for Levinas and his absolute altruistic obligation for the Other, nonetheless concludes that it is absolutely impossible. Caputo writes that the “‘absolutely Other’ of which Levinas speaks is a fabulous story. I am speaking sincerely, literally. The ‘absolutely Other’ is a gripping tale, very moving and very powerful, a tremendous and salutary shock that Levinas delivers to contemporary philosophy.”^[6] But the emphasis is upon the fiction--the poetry--the fabulous nature of this story of obligation. Caputo thinks that Levinas goes to excess and uses “a bit of hyperbole.”^[7] The altruism or agape of which Levinas speaks is “an impossible dream.”^[8]

Why does Caputo say that it is impossible? It is impossible because he is interpreting Levinas as an exclusivist with regard to agape and eros. Since an exclusivist holds that agape cannot contain any self-interest, then the presence of even the faintest trace of self-interest voids agape as such. So when Caputo the exclusivist reads Levinas as an exclusivist, the only way for him to make sense of it is to say that we cannot take Levinas literally. If we were to take Levinas literally on this point, then he would be subject to what Derrida has already deconstructed elsewhere.”^[9] Put simply, Caputo explains it this way: “suppose that A gives B to C. What could be more simple than that? If A gives B to C, then C is grateful to A and owes A a debt of gratitude, with the result that C, instead of being given something, is now in debt. On the other hand A is more or less consciously and explicitly pleased with herself for her generosity.” And “this is no less true if everything happens unconsciously, for one may certainly contract unconscious debts or unconsciously congratulate oneself for one’s being very wonderful and generous.” The result, Caputo concludes with Derrida, “is that as soon as a gift is given it begins to annul itself, or the conditions which make the gift possible also make it impossible.”^[10]

The deconstruction of absolute altruism, therefore, simply shows that anything that is done (even the most anonymous, selfless, unaware act of sacrifice) is finally infected with some degree of self-interest. As Caputo puts it, “I do want to be absolutely altruistic . . . I want to. But if that is what I want, then if I am altruistic I end up doing what I want.”^[11] And no matter how negligible the emphasis upon the “I want” may be, he shows that we can never shake the “I want” or the “for me.” It is in the midst of this discussion of the undeconstructed Levinas that Caputo says that “Levinas--if you insist on taking him straight, without a twist of deconstruction--is too pious, [and] his poetics are too grave.”^[12]

Caputo also talks about the circle of return--the economic circle of self-interest. He describes it as “a line that leads out from the agent to the action and then back again, forming a circle or a loop, a ring or chain, a self-enriching . . .link, so that the action always belongs to the circle of agency.” Even the purest possible gift “belongs to this circle, because when I send a gift out, gratitude comes back, whether I want or not.”^[13] So on Caputo’s exclusivist interpretation, Levinas is an exclusivist who locates the obligation outside this economic circle of return. Caputo agrees that altruistic agape would have to escape this closed loop of reciprocity, but insists that such a transcendent escape is impossible.

b. A Different Exclusivist Interpretation: John Davenport

Another one who has interpreted Levinas as advocating the possibility of agape on exclusivist terms is John Davenport. Davenport, while not agreeing with Caputo’s conclusion, nonetheless interprets Levinas as an agapeistic exclusivist. Davenport concludes that Levinas faces some insurmountable dilemmas precisely because he sees agape and eros as mutually exclusive. Davenport interprets Levinas as holding to the view that “every form of reciprocity makes our responsibility conditional.”^[14] This is not to say Davenport agrees that unconditional love is therefore impossible (as Caputo does). Caputo thinks Levinas is right to be an exclusivist but wrong to think that agape is still possible. Davenport, on the other hand, thinks Levinas is wrong to be an exclusivist but right to think that agape is still possible. Despite these differences, what they both share is the common interpretation that Levinas, in any case, is an exclusivist with regard to agape and eros.

c. A Non-Exclusivist Interpretation: Adriaan Peperzak

But there is not consensus on whether Levinas is an exclusivist, since for example, Adriaan Peperzak interprets Levinas as a non-exclusivist. Peperzak does not see Levinas as holding to the position that agape and eros are mutually exclusive. As Peperzak reads Levinas, he does not see that the transcendence of agape precludes any trace of the imminence of eros. As Peperzak explains it, neither the this-worldliness of eros nor the other-worldliness of agape makes the other impossible. Rather, “turning to the otherwise and the height of the ‘elsewhere’ is not . . . fleeing away form worldliness.” And likewise, “[l]oyalty to the human world does not imply at all the betrayal of all transcendence.”^[15]

Recalling that for Levinas “desire” (desir) is the term associated with agape, and “need” (besoin) is the term associated with eros, we can see that Peperzak comments on Levinas saying that this “desire of ‘a future never future enough,’ [is] in contrast to, and in union with, the needy and consumptive part of love.”^[16] The emphasis here on the “and” is Peperzak’s emphasis--pointing to the union of these two different types of love. He also explains that Levinas “stresses the equivocal character of love as a sort of synthesis, or--as Levinas prefers to say--as something ‘between’ the transcendence of the face and the immanent enjoyment, between the desire for the Other and the need for concupiscent self-satisfaction.”^[17] So Peperzak rejects the interpretation that has Levinas holding that eros and agape are mutually exclusive. But this runs the danger of giving strength to the objection that agape and eros are not really different, and that agape can thus be reduced or understood in terms of eros. Especially with this language of ‘synthesis,’ being used, it is appropriate now to move to the second major distinction I wish to suggest, so as to defend Peperzak’s interpretation from the charge of turning Levinas into a Hegelian.

2. The Reductionist Question

Although this distinction between reductionism and non-reductionism in regard to eros and agape may seem very similar to the distinction between exclusivism and non-exclusivism, it is that very similarity which I hope to clarify in the attempt to avoid confusing the two. The reductionist is going to say that what is referred to as agape can be fully explained and understood in terms of eros.

It is this question to which concerns me most. With regard to the question of Levinas’s view of the mutual exclusivity of eros and agape, I have presented Caputo and Davenport as saying that he is an exclusivist and Peperzak as saying that he is not. I do not hope to settle that question once and for all. In fact I am not even at this time taking a strong position on the question one way or the other, since each gives subtle and convincing arguments for their respective interpretations. But I will take a position on Levinas’ view of the reductionist question. Taking the advice of Professor Koterski who has said “rarely affirm, seldom deny and always distinguish,” this will be my rare affirmation, and perhaps a safe one at that. Whether Levinas is an exclusivist or a not, it seems clear to me that he is not a reductionist. He does not think that agape can be reduced to eros. The desire for the Other--wherein my absolute obligation for the other lies--cannot be understood in terms of my need for the Other--wherein my hunger to be filled dominates.

Caputo admits that Levinas wants for agape to be irreducible to eros, but does not think that he can have it, precisely because he holds that the exclusivity of the two along with our inescapability from eros entails their reducibility.

Even though, as I mentioned earlier, Davenport finds company with Caputo in regard to their views on Levinas’ exclusivity, Davenport parts company with Caputo and is joined by Peperzak on the question of Levinas’ reductionism. Davenport thinks that Levinas is “correct in insisting on the unconditionality of ethics”^[18] even though he thinks that he is wrong to hold the exclusivist view that he does^[19] (since it opens him to the criticisms that have been launched by Gene Outka and others against self-renunciatory agape ethics).^[20] Davenport suggests that a non-exclusivist (or ‘reconciliatory,’ in Outka’s terms) view of agape would allow him to maintain a true unconditional agape view of ethics that avoids reducibility.

Now we can return to the s-word Peperzak used (synthesis), in explaining Levinas’ non-exclusivism. But does this mention of synthesis mean that eros and agape are reduced in some synthesis or aufbehung? Peperzak does not denies this emphatically. Peperzak says that the “relation between the Same (or the totality) and the Other (and/or the infinite) . . . characterizes the Other as a reality that cannot be integrated or ‘sublated’ into any . . . form of interiority.”^[21] In short, he is saying that agape cannot be ‘sublated’ into eros. It is not the reducibility of the two that allows them to be mutually inclusive. Rather, desire (as responsibility for the other) “must be sharply distinguished from any form of need.”^[22] Despite the fact that he rejects their mutual exclusivity, he also insists on the “essential impossibility or fusion” of the desire and the need.^[23] He testifies clearly to the “irreducibility of a fecund plurality.”^[24] Peperzak, therefore, interprets Levinas as a non-reductionist as well.

3. Non-Reductionism?

I have asked whether Levinas is an exclusivist with regard to eros and agape, and provided various answers to that question without giving one of my own. I have asked whether Levinas is a reductionist with regard to eros and agape? (And I answer that he is not a reductionist). But the further question I want to raise is this: ‘must he be a reductionist?’ Caputo answers that no he is not, but yes he must-need be. Davenport answers he is not and need not be (with a few changes). And Peperzak answers that he is not, and he need not be (sans alter-ations). So I take the position that whether or not he needs to be a reductionist, it is at least safe to say that he does not want to be one and does not see himself as holding a reductionist view of agape.

But now I will leave the exegetical questions behind me and use this discussion to pose the latter question of whether Levinas needs to be a reductionist. Or more generally, do we all need to be reductionists with regard to agape and eros? But that is not the exact form of question I am really after. Caputo thinks we all need to be reductionists, and I have some responses that I could give if given the time on why giving as ‘true giving’ need not be reduced or exchanged for mere exchanging. But my goal here is not to deconstruct his deconstruction. Rather I want to ask the simple question, “What if Levinas is right?” “What if Davenport and Peperzak were right?” Or more directly, “What if agape cannot in every case be reduced to eros?”

A strong objection could be raised to this non-reducibility of agape to eros is to simply say, “I see no other option--I see no way in which agape could actually be possible without its being explained in terms of eros. So by way of beginning a reply I want to question precisely how (at least as precisely as the subject will allow) this might be possible. Rather than making the affirmation that it is possible for agape to exist without being reduced to eros, I want (for the sake of argument, as they say, or for the sake of wisdom, or for the sake of the wisdom-of-love) to just assume for the moment that it is true, and ask, “what then?”

4. “What then?” then

The main task of this short paper has been to differentiate the first two questions of exclusivity and reductionism, and to raise a third question which deserves attention. While I have not enough time to address this third question today, and feel content to leave my appetite for its answer unsatiated, I nonetheless (if time allows) will gesture in the direction of the main contenders for a helpful reply, suggesting that two figures one could turn to for such possible resources are Augustine and Bonaventure.

Bibliography

Caputo, John D. Against Ethics: Contributions to a Poetics of Obligation with Constant Reference Deconstruction. Studies in Continental Thought. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1993.

------. Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida. Perspectives in Continental Philosophy. New York: Fordham University Press, 1997.

Davenport, John J. “Levinas’s Agapeistic Metaphysics of Morals.” Journal-of-Religious-Ethics 26 (Fall 1998): 331-66.

Derrida, Jacques. The Gift of Death. Religion and Postmodernism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Lévinas, Emmanuel. Entre Nous on Thinking-of-the-Other. European Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.

------. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Duquesne Studies. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969.

Outka, Gene H. “Theocentric Agape and the Self: An Asymmetrical Affirmation in Response to Colin Grant’s Either/Or’.” Journal of Religious Ethics 24, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 35-42.

Peperzak, Adriaan Theodoor. To the Other. Purdue University Series in the History of Philosophy. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1993.

^[1] . John J. Davenport, “Levinas’s Agapeistic Metaphysics of Morals,” Journal-of-Religious-Ethics 26 (Fall 1998): 334.

^[2] . Emmanuel. Lévinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, Duquesne Studies. (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), 179.

^[5] . Emmanuel. Lévinas, Entre Nous on Thinking-of-the-Other, European Perspectives. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 103.

^[6] . John D. Caputo, Against Ethics: Contributions to a Poetics of Obligation with Constant Reference Deconstruction, Studies in Continental Thought (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1993), 79.

^[7] . John D. Caputo, Against Ethics: Contributions to a Poetics of Obligation with Constant Reference Deconstruction, Studies in Continental Thought (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1993), 82.

^[9] . Jacques. Derrida, The Gift of Death, Religion and Postmodernism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).

^[10] . John D. Caputo, Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida, Perspectives in Continental Philosophy (New York: Fordham University Press, 1997), 141.

^[11] . Caputo, Against Ethics: Contributions to a Poetics of Obligation with Constant Reference Deconstruction, 83.

^[14] . John J. Davenport, “Levinas’s Agapeistic Metaphysics of Morals,” Journal-of-Religious-Ethics 26 (Fall 1998): 347.

^[15] . Adriaan Theodoor Peperzak, To the Other, Purdue University Series in the History of Philosophy (West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1993), 133.

^[18] . Davenport, “Absolute Passivity and the Other as Eschatological Hierophany,” 347.

^[20] . Gene H. Outka, “Theocentric Agape and the Self: An Asymmetrical Affirmation in Response to Colin Grant’s Either/Or’,” Journal of Religious Ethics 24, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 35-42.

^[21] . Peperzak, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, 120.